


Home Is Where My Horse Is

by treacherousdoctors



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Country Music, Inspired by Twitter, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Reggie is Emotional And Bisexual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26538313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treacherousdoctors/pseuds/treacherousdoctors
Summary: Reggie finds a CD in the garage that he's never seen before. He realises upon listening that it was put there specially for him.
Relationships: Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 528





	Home Is Where My Horse Is

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is v v short but i wrote it for ciara @aIyanawaz on twitter !! reggie nolastname's country music agenda thrives :^)

The garage is empty when Reggie gets there. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised - lately, the more they get used to having lives again, they spend less time together, and less time in the same one room. In the first few weeks, Reggie had rarely been alone. If Alex was out with Willie he still had Luke, and if Luke was at his parents’ house he still had Alex. That started to change a little the more confident they became. He doesn’t mind it, not exactly. He gets why the guys need a little space sometimes, and honestly, when Julie is at school there’s little to do in the garage that wouldn’t make noise. They’re getting better at being individuals, rather than one ghostly entity.

Even so, there’s a little twinge of disappointment. He hasn’t seen either of the guys in hours (Alex since this morning and Luke since last night), and he misses them. It’s a strange sort of missing, as if there’s a part of him that isn’t quite complete when his friends aren’t around.

He can’t help but feel sometimes like he’s the only one that hasn’t quite found _his_ thing yet. Alex has Willie to tie him to the present, and Luke has sought comfort in sitting in his parents’ house despite the fact they can’t communicate. And of course, they all have Julie, but that isn’t quite the same. Reggie doesn’t have anything individual, anything that is solely his. Not that he needs that, exactly, but it would be nice to feel that he truly belongs here. To find something that belonged to him, something that bound him to this new reality. All he has, he had before.

Julie is out at dinner with her family, meaning that unless the other boys return soon he’ll be alone for at least a few hours.

The garage is always a nice place to be, familiar and homely in all the right ways. It seems Julie’s mom kept a lot of what they left behind, and even though she made the space her own it still feels like home to Reggie. He has each and every detail committed to memory, which is how he notices the CD.

He knows Flynn has been playing around with some recording equipment lately. It’s not a professional setup by any means, but they’re all having fun with it. She’s recorded and mixed a couple of Julie and the Phantoms songs and put them on a flash drive (because _“my laptop doesn’t have a disk drive, nobody uses CDs anymore”_ ). The writing on the case is totally illegible, definitely Luke’s handiwork, and Reggie can’t for the life of him make out what the title says. Glancing around to make sure he’s alone, he slips the disk out of its case and into the CD player.

The sound that surrounds him is not at all what he expected. It doesn’t sound like anything they’ve recorded together. The only instrument is an acoustic guitar - no piano, no drums. Something twinges in his gut- have they been recording without him? The possibility hurts a little, the thought that he could be seen as unnecessary to a song.

The sinking feeling disappears when the lyrics kick in, and a confused kind of joy overtakes him. It’s just Luke’s voice, quieter than he usually sings but every bit as strong. It’s a long time since Reggie has heard something so raw from him - mostly he plays his electric guitar and sings loud and proud, every bit the image of a rockstar. This song isn’t like that. In fact, it isn’t even the same genre.

It’s a country song.

One of _Reggie’s_ country songs.

Sure, he’s been sliding his lyric sheets into Luke’s notebook for months, but he never expected anything to actually come of it. They’re not country artists, that’s a given. Reggie’s guilty pleasure music has no impact on what they actually play. He’s fine with that, seriously, but he’s still elated to hear one of his songs made real. And it sounds so _good._ He likes writing lyrics, but it’s really Luke and Julie’s thing. He didn’t expect anything he wrote alone to ever sound as good as this (maybe that’s a self-confidence issue, but not really - different people have different strengths, and his is _playing_ the music more so than writing it).

The song sounds kind of perfect. It’s raw, of course - sloppily recorded, with no discernable mixing or editing, and without any additional instrumentals it doesn’t sound complete yet - but Luke is so obviously into it. It’s wonderful to listen to.

The track ends, and Reggie immediately starts it again. He does that over and over, hitting replay every few minutes and letting the sound wash over him. He can’t escape the grin on his face, so wide it’s starting to hurt his cheeks. His heart is pounding out of his chest.

Luke recorded this. By choice. He picked up one of Reggie’s (only half-serious) songs and decided it was worth playing. He always laughs off Reggie’s love for country music, but he still chose it. He wrote a guitar part, played it, recorded it. And he did it all as a surprise?

He shouldn’t think too much about it. This probably means nothing… right? Like, there’s any number of reasons that, of every song in that journal, Luke chose to record this one. The chances that he did it out of any particular affection for Reggie are slim, right? He gave up hope on that crush years ago. Luke is just like that with _everyone_ , and just because Reggie’s heart beats out of his chest every time Luke looks his way doesn’t mean that the feeling is mutual. He probably picked this song for a joke, or maybe to cheer himself up. He’s been a little down about the whole “being dead” thing lately, but who can be sad when country music gets involved? It’s an instant pick-me-up (and Reggie can’t help but think this song could be even better if he got the chance to shred on his banjo). 

Yeah, that’ll be it. He picked this song because it’s fun. It has nothing to do with Reggie specifically.

No sooner has that thought run through his mind does he notice the note. Tucked inside the CD case, in that barely readable scrawl, is a slip of paper. It takes him a moment to actually read it, but when he does his heart flutters anew.

_“hello reg, i wanted to make you smile!!! i hope this works :D you deserve to be happy all of the time and i know you like country so :D hope it’s what you wanted!!!!”_

Reggie knows he shouldn’t read too much into it, but he can’t help it. Luke went out of his way to make Reggie happy. _Just_ Reggie. Just for him.

His face burns as he hits play again, and he just cannot bring himself to stop grinning.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this was ok !! pls comment/leave kudos if u liked it !!
> 
> my twitter is @closetedcory, feel free to follow me for a constant stream of borderline incomprehensible jatp tweets :^)


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